Does Your Mindset Matter When Chasing Good Health?

Did you know that your mind could be making you hold on to unwanted fat?

Yes, you heard me right. Your MIND could be making you hold on to unwanted fat. This is a very common problem that we often don’t realize.

There is a link between your weight and your mind and vice versa. In 2010, a study from Harvard that was published in the Archives of General Psychiatry found that obese individuals had a 55% higher risk of developing some form of depression when compared to individuals who have a healthy weight. There was another study done which showed people with depression have a 58% higher risk of becoming an obese individual themselves.

Mindset is so important when reaching your health and fitness goals.

Mindset is the catalyst for success or failure….especially when it comes to staying committed, consistent and believing in a process, or even believing in ourselves.

Mindset, in short, is a set of beliefs or thoughts that can, in total, be summarized by saying the following about ourselves: “I can do this” or “I can’t do this.” It is your belief set about yourself and it’s what helps you or hinders you. This could be how you view your intelligence all the way to how you view and what you believe about your body. By identifying that you are indeed worth it, you are now able to really dive in and work on resetting your mindset.

Did you know your mind determines everything? It’s your mind that tells you to get up and workout and to stop eating when you aren’t hungry. It’s your mind that tells you that you can do this or you can’t do this. Our frame of mind can work for us or against us when it comes to our health and wellness goals. In the same way a positive mindset can help us in life, a negative frame of mind can also be detrimental to us.

When we focus on the negative we will struggle. It’s the “garbage in, garbage out” concept. What we put in our mind has the ability to impact how we live and the kind of results we achieve or fall short on. This is why it’s so important to have positive voices in our lives….to help us fill up on good and affirming things that will be a catalyst for a “can do” attitude.

One of the biggest things in your health and fitness journey, whether you are trying to lose weight or not, is shifting your mindset. We can’t change our outside without changing our inside (aka our mind). And one of the first things in changing our mindset is stopping the negative self talk. We ALL struggle with negative self talk to one degree or another.

Language is a powerful thing, and it’s not just the words we say out loud – it is the words and comments that run through our brain.

Have you ever sat and really monitored your thoughts about yourself?

Most of us haven’t but I challenge you today to do that. Take 5 minutes RIGHT NOW and really think about the thoughts you have about yourself. A popular therapy called “Cognitive Behavioral Therapy” is influenced by the belief that thoughts influence feelings, which then influence behavior. So, basically, you start to behave and feel as if those negative self thoughts are true. And having a constant negative feeling towards yourself will soon come out in every aspect of your life causing you to view the world and situations negatively as well.

But why is negative self talk so detrimental to your health? Words carry energy, just like anything else, and that energy is a very powerful thing. Having this negative energy in your body can lead to stress and depressive tendencies, which slows the metabolism. This negative energy can also lead you to overeating (emotional eating) to numb the feeling.

If you find yourself struggling with the negative mindset, negative self talk and/or emotional eating when it comes to your health and wellness goals, I would love to offer you my free mini eBook “Why Your Own Mind is Making You Fat”. In this free download, I will dive more into why mindset matters as well as TIPS to overcome a negative mindset and some tips on overcoming emotional eating. Please download here.